Escape Not Always An Option
by Eledhwen
Summary: A legend has been captured. Whilst Tortuga raises a rueful glass to "daft Jack", an old friend decides proactivity is a better option. But has the Navy won, this time around? Chapter 12 - home at last. The End.
1. Prologue

_**Disclaimer:** they belong, as you know, to Disney and I'm making no profit (sniff).  
  
**Author's note:** well, I don't know where this came from and I'm not entirely sure where it's going, but for better or worse - a new piratical fic. Hurrah. Please enjoy. Following chapters will be longer!_   
  
----  
  
**Prologue**  
  
When news came to Tortuga that Jack Sparrow had been captured by the Royal Navy, the whores exchanged rueful glances and went back to pleasuring their latest clients. In the taverns, men raised glasses to "daft Jack" and mused that it was bound to happen one day. The more savvy amongst them observed he had been captured before, and escaped; but the fact remained this time it seemed a hopeless case. Several of Sparrow's crew were dead, and the majestic _Black Pearl_ was resting on the ocean floor, a burnt-out shell.   
  
It took several days for the news to travel up the hill behind the town. The man who took it to the owner of the small plantation found himself walking slower and slower as he approached, and he tried to justify his speed by the weight of the basket of fish wrapped in banana leaves he carried.   
  
She was working outside when he got there, weeding a vegetable plot with her orphaned nephew kneeling beside her. A bright scarf bound her hair, and she looked almost cheerful when she looked up.   
  
"Brought the fish?" she asked, dusting off her skirt and crossing to him.   
  
"Aye."   
  
She dug out a few coins and handed them over. "Thanks."   
  
The man shifted, and she sent him a shrewd look.   
  
"What is it?"   
  
"There was news, from Port Royal," he said. "They've … well, 'tis like this, Mistress Anamaria; they've got Cap'n Jack."   
  
Her mouth tightened. "Who have?"   
  
"Royal Navy."   
  
"Bastards." A pause. "What about the _Pearl_?"   
  
"Sunk."   
  
"_Merde_." The woman named Anamaria folded her arms. "When do they hang him?"   
  
He shrugged. "Nobody's sure. Just heard they have him, over on Jamaica."   
  
"Thanks for telling me," said Anamaria. "And for the fish."   
  
It was a clear dismissal. The messenger turned and hurried off back down the track to Tortuga.   
  
Left in front of her small, neat cabin, Anamaria turned her eyes to the sky and took a deep breath, before crossing back to her nephew.   
  
"Zac. You're going to have to stay with Tante Belle for a while."   
  
The boy, a smudge of dust across his face, looked rebellious. Anamaria shook her head.   
  
"This time, no complaints, _hein_?" She gave him an affectionate push. "_Allez_, go and pack some things."  
  
"Today?" The boy stood up. "Tante Ana!"  
  
"No arguments," she said firmly, picking up her basket of weeds to empty and bustling him in front of her into the hut.   
  
An hour later a very different woman left the cabin. In place of the scarf covering her head, a band of material had been folded and bound around her brow. Long, straight hair hung loose down her shoulders, over the billowy shirt tucked into breeches. A pair of tall boots had replaced the simple sandals, and a long dagger was hanging from her hip. By her side, a small and slightly awed boy walked with a bundle of clothes under his arm.   
  
A short way away from the cabin, Anamaria gave her nephew a gentle push. "Off you go," she said.   
  
He nodded, and stood on tiptoe to give her a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying away.   
  
Left alone, she shouldered her own pack, and set off at a quick, determined pace towards Tortuga. 


	2. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue.  
  
**Author's note:** Many thanks for the nice comments. Hopefully this chapter will begin to answer a few questions. 'Tante' and anything else italicised in Ana's speech is French - 'Tante' meaning aunt. I try to use just snippets for flavour rather than phrases that mean enough to need translating. This Anamaria is the same one who features in my young!Jack fics, and is Haitian living on Tortuga, so French-Creole speaking (though I don't speak any Creole, and so get by with slangy French).  
  
Chapters will be slow-coming. I'm horribly busy these days. Just so you know._   
  
----  
  
**Chapter 1**  
  
"I'm looking for passage to Jamaica," Anamaria said, arms folded, bag over her shoulder.   
  
"Not going to Jamaica," the captain said.   
  
"I'll make it worth your while."   
  
"Look, love," said the captain, condescendingly, "I ain't going after mad Sparrow, all right? He can save himself. If he don't save himself, then he's had his chances, one too many if'n you ask me."   
  
"I wasn't."   
  
"Find another ship," the captain concluded. "If you can."   
  
He smiled, and turned away.   
  
Anamaria scowled at his back.   
  
It was late afternoon, and she had been trying to find a vessel that would take her to Kingston for much of the day. So far, she had been met with either outright refusal or a demand for more money than she could afford.   
  
She stood on the quayside and considered her options.   
  
Giving up did not seem to be one of them. Anamaria, once she had started on a project, kept going.   
  
Half an hour later she was sweeping aside empty mugs and climbing on top of a table in 'The Faithful Bride'. There was a chorus of whistles and jeers.   
  
"Shut up!" Anamaria called, using the voice that used to relay orders from quarterdeck to topmast. The tavern, shocked by her tones, quietened. "_Bon_," said Anamaria. "I need passage to Jamaica."   
  
"Why?" came a voice from the darkness of the tavern.   
  
"Because I'm not seein' an old friend hang," Anamaria said.   
  
"Sparrow?" There was general laughter. "He your boy's dad, then, Mistress Ana?"   
  
The dagger left her belt and thudded into the wall by the speaker's head.   
  
"Jack Sparrow is a friend, and a good man," she said. "Is there no person here who sailed with him?"   
  
"Rules is rules," another man pointed out. "Them as gets left behind, stays behind."   
  
"They are more guidelines than rules," Anamaria retorted from her table-top. "Did nobody sail with him?"   
  
She stared into the darkness of the tavern.   
  
Finally there was movement, and a figure shuffled towards her table, tankard in hand. He raised it, and a pair of blurred, unfocused eyes.   
  
"I did. After you left 'im. John Briggs."   
  
"Got a ship?" she asked.   
  
"Fishin' boat," he admitted, taking a swig from his tankard.   
  
Anamaria jumped down from her tabletop, retrieved her dagger, took the mug from Briggs' hand, and led him out of the tavern to more jeers. She ignored them.   
  
In the moonlight Briggs turned out to be a reasonable figure of a man, not too old, and though he was drunk he seemed moderately in control of his faculties. She sized him up.   
  
"Can we leave on the dawn tide?" Anamaria questioned.   
  
Briggs made a clear effort to focus on her face. "Why?"   
  
She let out an exasperated sigh.   
  
"You sailed with Jack."   
  
"For a bit. Mad, he was, bloody mad. Good cap'n though."   
  
"_Exactement_," said Anamaria. "Do you want to see him on the end of a rope?"   
  
"Not 'specially," Briggs agreed, "but neither do I want to see me on t'end of a rope. If'n it's him or me, I'd rather it were him." He shrugged. "I'll take you, though why I'm doin' so I'm not right sure. Must be mad. My _Emmy_, she's moored over there, Mistress, if you'll follow me."   
  
"Just Anamaria," said Anamaria, shaking hands with him.   
  
They set sail whilst it was still dark, Briggs's two crewmembers on board. Briggs had a small one-masted fishing boat in the native style, but it was a sturdy little vessel and Anamaria had no doubt it was more than capable of getting them to Port Royal and back.   
  
Once at sea, the sails set, Briggs settled down with a hand on the rudder. Anamaria sat nearby, sharpening her dagger.   
  
"When were you with Jack?" she asked, after a while.   
  
"Coupl'a years back," said Briggs. "I'd got fed up with the ship I were on, and Cap'n Sparrow was lookin' for more crew. Folk said as how he was a fair cap'n, and worth sailin' under. I weren't sure, really; lookin' at him, you'd not say he was a sailor."   
  
Anamaria raised an eyebrow.   
  
"Anyways, off we went, caught a few ships - t'_Pearl_ moved, I hadn't realised how quick she was afore I sailed aboard 'er - we were all doin' well, makin' money. S'pose then I realised he was more than he looked."   
  
His eyes flicked up to the tell-tales floating from the masthead, and he adjusted the boat's course.   
  
"I sailed under the cap'n until I had enough to buy my _Emmy_," he said, patting the rudder affectionately. "And you? You know folk talk, down in Tortuga?"   
  
"They will always talk," said Anamaria. "They think Zac is Jack's child."   
  
"He's not?"   
  
"No, he's not," she returned.   
  
"So why this?" asked Briggs.   
  
Anamaria felt the edge of her dagger and sheathed it.   
  
"Because he was a good friend to me when I needed one," she said. "And later, a good captain, though he's a scoundrel through and through. He was saved once from hanging, you know that?"   
  
"I didn't," said Briggs.   
  
"He was lucky," she went on. "And after that I knew how he didn't want to die like that. He does not want to die like that. This is Jack Sparrow, _savez_?"   
  
"Aye." Briggs nodded. "I see what you mean."   
  
She offered him a brief smile, and turned to contemplate the ocean.   
  
They put in, quietly and neatly, to Port Royal a few days later. The harbour was filled, as usual, with a mixture of naval and merchant ships as well as some that looked less reputable. Briggs and Anamaria - she with her hair tied up and hidden under her hat, and her breasts bound - went ashore in the _Emmy_'s little boat.   
  
The town was as busy as ever, and the two found no difficulty in weaving through the crowds unnoticed. Anamaria kept her ears open for rumours of Sparrow, but they heard nothing until they approached the Navy fort.   
  
"Tomorrow, they're saying," a woman said to her companion. "Should be worth goin' to."   
  
"Surely he'll hang?" her friend asked.   
  
"Bound to. They say Admiral Norrington and the pirate have a history."   
  
"You don't say!"   
  
The women bustled away, chattering excitedly. Briggs and Anamaria exchanged glances.   
  
"_C'est vrai_," Anamaria said. "Norrington was the one who nearly hung him last time."   
  
"Well," said Briggs, morosely, "I reckon we'd to get drunk now. Can't do nowt for the cap'n till tomorrow."   
  
Anamaria sent a regretful look towards the fort, but she was bound to concur with her companion. Together they turned their backs on the thick stone walls that housed their former captain and friend, and went in search of refreshment. 


	3. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue.  
  
**Author's note:** Thanks again for comments!_   
  
----  
  
**Chapter 2**  
  
Anamaria arrived at the town courtroom the next morning in a crowd of curious citizens. She had left Briggs snoring in the tavern following a night of serious drinking, and was dressed in as masculine a fashion as she could muster. With her hair tightly twisted and bound up underneath her hat, she blended in tolerably well with the other sailors come to watch the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow be sentenced.   
  
With the room full, the guards in smart red arrived, lining the walls. Following them came a small group of naval officers in dress uniform. Anamaria, watching them, guessed the one with the longest wig would be the celebrated Admiral Norrington. For years now Norrington had been the pirates' plague, dedicating time and men to hunting down buccaneers across the Caribbean.   
  
Once, Anamaria remembered, Jack Sparrow had talked of the Admiral. The two men had reluctantly spent time in each other's company - and Sparrow in Norrington's custody - during the episode which returned the _Black Pearl_ to her captain. Sparrow had escaped, but afterwards spoke of Norrington with something approaching respect. The officer was, he said, a "good man".   
  
Anamaria wondered whether Sparrow's opinion of the Admiral would have changed now, with the _Pearl_ at the bottom of the sea.   
  
"All rise!" came a voice, and the crowd straggled to its feet as the judge came in. Dressed in black, his face was stern and he surveyed the audience severely before sitting down.   
  
Once everyone had squashed onto the court benches again, the judge rapped his gavel.   
  
"Bring in the prisoner," he ordered.   
  
There was a ripple of chatter, and all eyes turned to the door. Anamaria found herself digging her nails into her palms.   
  
The door opened, and flanked by two guards, in shuffled Jack Sparrow.   
  
They had shackled him with heavy iron cuffs at wrists and ankles, restricting his movements and cutting off the easy, rolling swagger Anamaria always associated with her old friend. His clothes were torn and dirty, and his head was bare. She wondered what had happened to his beloved tricorn hat.   
  
The beads and other assorted decorations still hung in his dark matted hair, though, adding a light counterpoint to the low jangling of the chains. And, Anamaria was pleased to note, he held his head up high as they brought him in.   
  
Sparrow was escorted into the dock, and the guards stood on either side of him. The judge rustled parchment, and peered down his nose at the prisoner.   
  
"You are Jack Sparrow?"   
  
Anamaria expected her friend to come back with a tart reminder of his position as captain; but instead he merely nodded.   
  
"Aye, yr'honour."   
  
"You have been brought here today charged with multiple crimes," continued the judge. "Piracy, murder, arson, escape from British custody, theft, robbery, and assault. You are charged with masquerading under false colours and obtaining goods and services by deception. Do you understand these charges?"   
  
"Perfectly, yr'honour," said Sparrow.   
  
"Call the first witness," the judge said.   
  
The tall officer Anamaria had identified as Norrington stood, and came to the witness box.   
  
"Admiral Norrington."   
  
"Your Honour." Norrington's voice was clear and strong, and carried easily throughout the room.   
  
"Can you identify this man?" asked the judge.   
  
"Certainly. He is Jack Sparrow, by some known as 'captain'. A pirate."   
  
The judge shuffled more paper. "And how was this man captured, Admiral?"   
  
"The Royal Navy vessel the _Dauntless_ was sailing thirty miles off Jamaica," said Norrington, his hands folded behind his back. "On the horizon we saw Sparrow's ship, the _Black Pearl_. She is - was - highly recognisable due to her black sails. We readied our cannon and approached."   
  
The Admiral turned his glance towards Jack Sparrow.   
  
"As we came towards the _Black Pearl_, she fired a shot broadside across our bows, which did not hit. We understood she was asking us to surrender, and returned fire. There was a close battle, during which some pirates boarded the _Dauntless_ and some of our marines boarded the _Pearl_.   
  
"By luck, we hit the mainmast of the _Pearl_, crippling her, and another shot must have hit below the waterline for shortly afterwards she began to list badly. We called upon Sparrow to surrender, and I believe he was contemplating it from the deck of the _Black Pearl_."   
  
Norrington shifted his stance. "However just at that moment another shot was fired from the _Dauntless_, and her bow broke off, throwing some of her crew into the water. Sparrow called upon his men to cross to the _Dauntless_. Most did. Sparrow himself was in the process of swinging over the gap between the vessels when the remains of the _Black Pearl_ exploded."   
  
"Exploded?" the judge put in.   
  
"Doubtless a powder keg, your honour," said Norrington. "That left the ship in ruins, and the survivors of her crew on board the _Dauntless_ and in our custody."   
  
"Thank you, Admiral." The judge looked hard at Sparrow. "Does the prisoner wish to say anything in his defence before I pronounce judgement?"   
  
The audience's heads turned as one to the prisoner, who considered for a moment and nodded.   
  
"Aye, I have." He shook off the restraining arms of his guards, and stood dignified in the dock. Anamaria, through her fear for her friend, found herself full of pride in his attitude.   
  
"Thanks, Admiral," Sparrow began, the courtroom hushed to hear his voice though in fact there was little need. "You've given a fair account, and I can't ask more'n that. I confess I had an eye for the _Dauntless_, and I'd have had her too if there hadn't been that lucky shot of yours."   
  
He paused. "Frankly, I'm not really sure why you bothered with this. I was sentenced to death here eight years back, and I'm sure you'll do the same again. I know there's no Will Turner to rescue me this time, since he headed back to England. But you know, mate - yr'honour - not all pirates are murdering thieves."   
  
Sparrow turned to the audience. They were hanging on his every word, and he knew it. Anamaria knew he knew it, and knew this could well be Jack Sparrow's last, glorious stand, one to go down in the history books.   
  
"I wanted the _Dauntless_. But I wanted her clean, and without any deaths. You'll have t'believe that, Admiral. Prob'ly won't get to say it again. The fun ain't in killing, it's in planning, savvy?"   
  
Looking down at her hands twisted together, Anamaria found herself smiling bitterly. How she remembered Sparrow setting forth his idealistic, rose-tinted views of decent piracy - a world where pirates were tricksters and thieves but not murderers. In practice, he was perfectly aware that idealism could not survive, and all the crew of the _Black Pearl_ had had blood on their swords at one time or another.   
  
But he had loved, she remembered, preaching from the quarterdeck of his ship. He would lean on the helm and gesture with be-ringed hands, the beads in his hair clacking gently as he moved his head. The crew listened indulgently, because they knew the dreams would be forgotten for more realistic endeavours when sails were sighted on the horizon, and it would be all hands on deck to raise the sails and hurry after the other vessel.   
  
Now, shackled and shabby, Sparrow gave out an earnest air of veracity. The Decent Pirate, a Good Man. Anamaria did not think it would save him.   
  
"So, make it quick, eh?" Sparrow went on. "Old adversaries, and that?"   
  
He sent a pleading look from his dark eyes to the Admiral, and stepped back to lean against the back of the dock.   
  
"Is that all?" demanded the judge.   
  
"Quite," said Sparrow, casually.   
  
The judge rummaged amongst his things, and produced a black cap. The audience murmured - they knew what that cap meant. Anamaria knew what it meant too.   
  
"Jack Sparrow," said the judge, seriously, "The sentence of this court is that you have been found guilty of many and heinous crimes. You shall be taken from this court to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul."   
  
She closed her eyes, and blinked back the tears. 


	4. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue.  
  
**Author's note:** This chapter inspired by what happened to Captain Kidd._   
  
----  
  
**Chapter 3**  
  
The judge removed his cap, gathered together his papers and stood up.   
  
"Wait."   
  
The audience ceased muttering, all heads seeking for the speaker.   
  
Admiral Norrington withdrew a piece of parchment from his uniform and unfolded it.   
  
"I do apologise, your honour," he said, in a tone that showed he was not at all sorry for whatever it was he was excusing. "I should have mentioned this before. It makes, of course, no difference to your verdict; the pirate shall hang. But I am recalled to London, and they ask that a prisoner be brought to hang on Execution Dock."   
  
"London?" said the judge.   
  
"_England_?" asked Sparrow, earning himself a cuff around the ear from a guard.   
  
"It is a strange request, I grant you," Norrington agreed. "Yet there it is. I shall explain that Sparrow has been tried here in Port Royal, and there will be no need for a retrial at the Bailey. But they wish him to be displayed on the dock, as an example." He looked across the courtroom at the prisoner. "It occurred to me that someone of the … notoriety of Mr Sparrow would suit the request admirably."   
  
The judge frowned down his nose. "This is highly irregular, Admiral. He should be hung here in Fort Charles, and displayed on Gallows Point. How do you propose to transport him back to England?"   
  
"In the brig of the _Dauntless_, of course," said Norrington. "And the town will have their hangings. There are ten survivors of the _Black Pearl_ in our gaol at present. They shall hang, and their captain shall have to wait awhile for his death. These are my orders, your honour, as the naval commander in the Caribbean."   
  
He saluted the judge, and left the courtroom briskly to a renewed burst of chatter.   
  
Anamaria raised her head and watched as Jack Sparrow was led out. Her friend looked faintly surprised, but only to one who knew him well. To the rest of the world, he bore a half-smile and even made bold enough to banter with his guards as they took him back to his cell.   
  
She made her way out with the rest of the crowd, who were discussing the events of the trial with gusto. Some seemed disappointed they would be deprived of the hanging of Jack Sparrow, but most philosophically reflected that at least they would have the other executions to look forward to.   
  
As soon as she could, Anamaria detached herself from the townsfolk and hurried to a quiet alleyway, where her stomach unclenched and voided itself of its contents.   
  
The situation was, she knew, hopeless. She was one woman, with a drunken ex-pirate to help, and she had a matter of days - possibly even hours - in which to spring him from Fort Charles and get him to safety. If she failed, there was no ship left in the Caribbean which could reasonably give the majestic _Dauntless_ a good chase, or match her in firepower. That meant Sparrow would be on his way to England, and either Newgate or Marshalsea prisons. Both were rumoured to be filthy, disease-ridden places, and nigh impossible to break out of.   
  
Anamaria straightened, and wiped her mouth with the edge of her sleeve. Time to wake Briggs and tell him the news.   
  
"No bloody surprise," Briggs said, over stew in the tavern a short while later. "Look, lo … Anamaria, he's guilty as hell. You an' I both know it. He's a pirate."   
  
"I will not see him hang!" she hissed.   
  
"Then let's go back to Tortuga, and you won't have t'," Briggs pointed out, reasonably.   
  
"Oh …" she glared at him. "_Connard_! Go back to Tortuga if you want."   
  
She slammed down her mug of ale and stormed upstairs to fetch her belongings.   
  
Half an hour later, with her hair loose and a bright skirt wrapped around her waist - over her breeches - Anamaria presented herself at Fort Charles wearing her best winning smile.   
  
"I would like to see Jack Sparrow," she told the guards at the gate.   
  
They looked at each other. "He's a prisoner," the fatter of the two guards pointed out.   
  
"I know that. But I want to see him."   
  
"Prisoners aren't allowed visitors," the thinner guard said. "You might be wanting to help him escape."   
  
Anamaria managed a laugh. "I don't want to help him escape," she said. "I want to wish him a speedy hangin'."   
  
"Like the rest of the town," the large guard agreed, sagely. "Well, you can't, miss."   
  
The two men stepped in front of the gates and crossed bayonets.   
  
For a moment, Anamaria contemplated drawing her concealed dagger and attacking, but she reflected it would probably not be a good plan. Instead, she sighed, and took out a small packet.   
  
"Then can you get this to him, _messieurs_?"   
  
The thin guard took the packet, and shook it. "What is it?" he asked.   
  
"Ashes of an old friend," said Anamaria, willing herself to look honest. "Just tell 'im it's from Ana. He will understand."   
  
"Right." The guard nodded. "Can do that. Sort of revenge, or something?"   
  
She assented with a nod.   
  
"Should we?" his companion questioned.   
  
"Can't do no harm," the other said. They nodded at each other, satisfied. She gave them another smile and turned away. She had not expected to be able to see Sparrow, but at least she had succeeded in passing on her gift to him.   
  
She took off the skirt in an alleyway, folding it into her bag. Drawing her knife, she contemplated it for a moment. With a sigh she took hold of a handful of long, dark hair in one hand, the dagger in the other, and she began to cut.   
  
It proved easy enough, once she had cut her hair short and dressed herself in male clothes again, to get a place on one of the merchant ships leaving Port Royal within the week for England. Anamaria had always found that nobody looked too closely at her if she affected a deeper voice, wore a hat with a floppy brim, and did her work well. Sparrow had been one of the few who knew she was female and did not care.   
  
Her ship, a stately brig named _Lady Mary_, was bound for the Port of London with a cargo of sugar, and was due to leave in four days. Whilst she was on board that evening, briskly scrubbing the decks, Anamaria looked up and saw the single sail of Briggs's _Emmy_ slipping out to sea. She smiled, wryly, to herself. No turning back now.   
  
On the afternoon before the _Lady Mary_'s embarkation, the crowds gathered on the quayside and the _Dauntless_ was busy with people. The sailors aboard Anamaria's ship downed tools and went to the rail to watch as Admiral Norrington, in full dress uniform, boarded his ship. The townsfolk cheered him as the boat left the quayside, and Norrington responded with a thin, brisk smile and a raised hand.   
  
But the real celebrity was yet to come. Leaning on the rail, Anamaria gritted her teeth and watched as - surrounded by marines in red - Jack Sparrow was brought out to the _Dauntless_ in chains. He had been given a clean shirt, though, and a shabby but brushed coat. As he looked around at the crowd, smiling his gilt-edged smile, Anamaria was pleased to see that his eyes were lined darkly. Her gift, the small package of kohl powder, had evidently reached her old friend.   
  
A few people attempted to boo the prisoner, but for the most part the crowd remained silent, and merely watched as Sparrow was led into the longboat and rowed out to the vast ship.   
  
Once the prisoner was on board, the guards took him below. Some sailors ran up the ratlines and unfurled the sails, whilst others raised the anchor. Slowly, the great ship moved out of the harbour.   
  
"Some folk say he was the Caribbean's best pirate," one of Anamaria's crewmates observed.   
  
"Good riddance," another said. "Can tell you I'll sleep easier this voyage, knowing the _Black Pearl_ ain't out there to hunt us."   
  
Anamaria went back to her work, praying for swift winds that would take the _Lady Mary_ safe to England on the heels of the _Dauntless_ and her captive. 


	5. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue.  
  
**Author's note:** London in the early 1700s was a booming, busy town. Christopher Wren was busy building St Paul's Cathedral, and the city was steadily growing to become the vast metropolis it is today.  
  
Prisoners were kept in Newgate Gaol, but most of the hangings took place at Tyburn - just outside the city. Pirates were hanged at Execution Dock, downriver from the Tower of London in Wapping. Hangings were great spectator sports, attracting crowds. Doctors had the right to the bodies of the prisoners for dissection, but there was usually a fight between them and the bereaved family.  
  
The 'Dagger' inn was real, and was apparently a hangout of the playwright Ben Jonson. It was on Holborn, between today's Oxford Street and St Paul's. That little factoid courtesy of this site: building-history. pwp. blueyonder. co. uk (close the gaps, the URL's getting stripped)._  
  
----  
  
**Chapter 4**  
  
Anamaria was glad she was assigned to be a topman as they were sailing up the River Thames into the Port of London. She had been to England once before, briefly, with Jack Sparrow when she was still very much a girl. But that had been long ago, and it had been Portsmouth.  
  
London was quite another matter. She had never seen so many people, nor so many ships and boats in one place. From the mainmast of the _Lady Mary_, she had a good view of the city as they approached. It was huge, and shambolic. Curls of smoke drifted into the sky from a thousand chimneys. Rowing boats weaved between the larger ships, crossing from shore to shore filled with people and goods.  
  
"Fantastic, ain't she?" Anamaria's neighbour said, with a smile on his lips.  
  
"Big," said Anamaria, simply.  
  
Orders were shouted up from below, and the crew worked quickly to furl the sails and bring the ship to a halt. The anchor was lowered with a splash. They had arrived in London.  
  
Descending from her post, Anamaria looked upriver at the forbidding building on the north shore.  
  
"What's that?" she asked.  
  
"That, André," her neighbour said, "is the Tower of London. Where they send traitors. And just down there," he pointed, "that's Execution Dock. They'll hang that Jack Sparrow there, and he'll dangle in his gibbet for the crows." He grinned. "Good place for pirates, eh?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
It took them a full day to unload the _Lady Mary_ of her rich cargo. The sacks and barrels went bobbing off in longboats towards the shore, where they were taken aboard carts. Once the ship was empty, her crew were set to scrubbing and tidying. It was only when she was pristine that the captain gave permission to go ashore.  
  
Anamaria gathered her belongings together and went to fetch her wages. She was paid in good silver, and with coins chinking together in her pockets she stepped onto London soil.  
  
The thing that hit her first was the noise and the smell. She stood, uncertain, on the side of the street as carts and barrows rattled past. Boys with parcels ran hither and thither. Women were selling fish from baskets, crying their wares in high voices.  
  
Slowly, she started walking, her bundle over her shoulder.  
  
She paused at the first tavern, and asked the way to Newgate Gaol. The tavern owner grinned.  
  
"Aye, there's a hangin' this afternoon. Just follow the crowds."  
  
"A hanging?"  
  
"Some murderer." The man shrugged. "There'll be the usual folk around, though. Nowt like a good hangin', eh?"  
  
Anamaria agreed, weakly, and after ascertaining which way she needed to go, left the tavern.  
  
It proved a long walk to Newgate, but an interesting one. Many of the buildings were new, and the older ones showed scorch marks. Anamaria remembered someone - the _Black Pearl_'s first mate, Gibbs, perhaps - telling her about the great fire that had ravaged the city some years before. Huge swathes had been destroyed, she remembered. The new buildings were packed in close, and the gutters ran with waste.  
  
She tried to decide, as the streets got busier, whether or not she liked London. Though the squalor of the streets was not that far removed from the worst parts of Tortuga or Port Royal, the whole was so much larger, and the climate so much damper and colder (she paused, and extracted her jacket from her bundle), she rather found herself longing for the blue skies of the Caribbean.  
  
But there was a job to do first.  
  
Newgate was easy to find, because just as the tavern owner had promised there was a press of men and women hanging around outside the gaol. There were also, Anamaria was interested to note, people coming freely in and out of the prison, many of them women in low-cut blouses and hair curling around their necks.  
  
She hefted her bundle more comfortably on her shoulder and waited, listening to the people talk around her. The chatter was all concerned with the forthcoming hanging, which, Anamaria was amazed to learn, would take place at another site another long walk away.  
  
"Goin' to Tyburn?" her neighbour asked her, and continued on without waiting for an answer. "Good to see the hangin', ain't it, but it's a bloody long way to walk." The woman glanced at Anamaria, and ran her eyes over her. "You ain't from round here."  
  
"Caribbean," said Anamaria, shortly.  
  
"Ah. Sailor?"  
  
Anamaria nodded.  
  
The woman seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but just then the great gates of Newgate swung open and two horses came out, tossing their proud heads. The crowd cheered, and moved aside to allow the animals and their burden out of the prison.  
  
Anamaria craned her neck to see. The horses were pulling a low wooden cart, on which sat, bound, a prisoner. He was a sad-looking man, scrawny and filthy, and his head hung low as the cart rattled past the people. Various vegetable missiles flew through the air, hitting the cart, the prisoner and sometimes the guards marching alongside.  
  
As the sledge passed, the crowd began to disperse. Some people followed behind the condemned man, whilst others headed off towards their homes or their work.  
  
Hesitating a moment, Anamaria decided to follow the prisoner and see this Tyburn for herself. After all, she reflected, she was in London to get Jack Sparrow off the gallows. These would be different gallows from the ones Sparrow was to hang on, if she had understood correctly, but they were nevertheless gallows.  
  
The crowd gathered again as the cart drew near the Tyburn Tree, men, women and children. A day out to see a man hang. Anamaria found a good vantage point and settled down to wait.  
  
The cart drew to a halt underneath the gallows tree, and Anamaria saw with horror - and a touch envy at the simplicity of the system - that the man would be hanged when the platform he stood on was drawn out from under him. In the pale face, the prisoner's eyes were filled with a sort of mad glare; fear, or pain, or anger. The executioner placed a noose around the man's neck, and nodded.  
  
Hushed now, the crowd waited for the signal. With a start, the horses were encouraged to move off. The rope dropped; the condemned man dropped too, his feet off the ground. There was a pause, and he began to struggle desperately, his legs kicking out even as his face darkened from lack of air.  
  
He danced the horrible jig on the end of the rope for some minutes, watched intently by the audience. Eventually, his movements stilled, and instantly two groups rushed forwards from either side of the gallows, fighting for the body.  
  
Anamaria turned away. It was not the first hanging she had seen, and indeed she had been much closer to death many times. Her own sword had run through several men in the course of her career as a pirate, and she had helped mop the blood-stained boards of more than one ship. But the callous, enthusiastic audience and the scramble for the corpse were new, and terrible. This was not a fitting end for Jack Sparrow.  
  
She walked slowly back towards the city. Her legs were aching now from the day spent afoot, and she was longing for food, drink and a bed for the night.  
  
Nevertheless, Anamaria made the decision to get as close to Newgate as she could before her legs gave out underneath her, and she ended up finally at an inn advertised with a sign of a dagger. Somewhat comforted by the symbol, she went in and found herself in a dark, smoky room that smelt wonderfully of savoury baking.  
  
"What can I do for you, lad?" the innkeeper asked, wiping his hands on a greying apron.  
  
"Food, and ale, and a room, please," Anamaria said.  
  
"I can bring you one of our pies," the man returned, "and a pot of ale. As for rooms, they're tuppence a night."  
  
She nodded. "Fine. Thank you."  
  
He waved her to a seat, and she sank down. Shortly a brimming tankard of ale and a hot meat pie, decorated with a pastry image of a dagger, arrived in front of her. Anamaria ate gratefully, and afterwards was shown to a small but clean room. She took off her boots and breeches, unwound the binding cloth from around her breasts, and fell into a deep sleep. 


	6. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue.  
  
**Author's note:** I've down-rated this fic from R to PG-13 - I don't think it's going to get terribly graphic anywhere. I was probably over-cautious. Many thanks for comments!_   
  
----  
  
**Chapter 5**  
  
The _Dauntless_ arrived in the Upper Pool of London the next morning, slightly battered from the long journey but still every bit as majestic as when she left Port Royal weeks before.   
  
Anamaria was on the quayside to see the _Dauntless_ dock, amongst a crowd that had gathered to watch the marines come ashore, cheering wildly at every red coat. They cheered again when Admiral Norrington, resplendent in dress uniform, appeared on deck. By the quayside, a cart had drawn up, and Anamaria thought she could guess who that was for.   
  
She loitered amongst the Londoners, her hat shading her dark face from being noticed by the sailors, and watched as Jack Sparrow was brought out into the pale English sunshine. He looked thin, and a little gaunt, but he said something to his guard that brought a smile to the marine's face.   
  
They led Sparrow, chained at the wrists, off the ship, to the evident fascination of the crowd. Against the drab dress of those watching, Sparrow looked like some exotic creature - even though his clothes were torn and dirty. He held his head high as he was taken into the cart, and it rattled off towards Newgate.   
  
Anamaria spent the next two days preparing. She loitered outside the gaol for a full five hours, watching people go in and out. She watched the guards, who they allowed in, what bribes they took; she noted the dress and manner of those entering. She walked as far round the perimeter of the prison as she could, examining the high, thick walls and the iron bars on the windows.   
  
On the second day, she went shopping. She had plenty of money both from the _Lady Mary_ and from savings over many years - when she chose to leave the _Black Pearl_, Jack Sparrow paid her handsomely. So Anamaria was able to select her goods carefully and without too much concern for cost.   
  
The third morning, she dressed in her little room at the 'Dagger' and frowned at herself in her little scrap of mirror. Her hair was combed out, and was now down to her shoulders. Still, that was normal. It was the sensation of the tight bodice around her torso, and the full, flouncy skirt that was wrong. She did not look like Anamaria, the feared pirate of the _Black Pearl_; and more to the point, she did not feel like her. The days when men had jumped to obey the orders she relayed from Jack Sparrow on the quarterdeck seemed a very long way away.   
  
But she forced herself out of the room and along the street to Newgate. On the way to the gaol, she was on the receiving end of far more catcalls and comments than she had ever heard before.   
  
By the time Anamaria arrived she was seething inside, and hoped that extricating Jack Sparrow would not prove too difficult. She tagged herself on to a group of whores who, in exchange for a few coins from the women and wandering hands on the guards' part, were being allowed into the prison.   
  
Newgate inside was dark and dank. Anamaria followed the other women across a courtyard and through a door. She found herself in a narrow corridor, with the cells on either side filled with prisoners. The place stank, of stale bodies and waste and rotting straw which lined the cells. As she made her way along the corridor, she looked to both sides, searching for Sparrow. By the end of the line of cells, it was clear he was not there, and she paused to speak to a guard.   
  
"I'm looking for a man called Jack Sparrow," said Anamaria.   
  
"Bet y'are," the guard returned, appreciatively examining her.   
  
"A pirate. Here just two days," she persisted.   
  
"Oh, him." The guard nodded. "Thought he already had a lass."   
  
Anamaria paused a split second, taking this in.   
  
"I was told he wanted another," she said, regaining composure.   
  
Leering, the guard picked through his keys. "Don't doubt it," he said. "He's a right queer one, mad, like, you know?"   
  
"Never met him," Anamaria lied, following the guard through a door and down another corridor. "Was just told to come here and ask for him."   
  
The guard paused, and waved towards a cell door ajar a little way down the corridor. "That one. Come and see me when you're done." He grinned at her, lasciviously.   
  
She smiled sweetly at him, before turning and making her way towards the cell. There was a strange noise emanating from the little room - a sort of thumping, interspersed with the sound of chains clanking. Anamaria's lips pursed, and she pulled open the door.   
  
The noise stopped, and two pairs of eyes met hers - one pair blue, and rather annoyed, the other dark, and evidently astonished.   
  
"Who are you?!" the owner of the blue eyes exclaimed, skirts rucked up around her waist and bodice unfastened.   
  
"Anamaria?!" the other said, propping himself up on his elbows.   
  
"_Salut_, Jack," Anamaria said.   
  
For a few moments everything was chaos, as Jack Sparrow tipped the blue-eyed girl off his lap and adjusted his breeches. Then there was an awkward squeeze at the door, as money changed hands between the pirate and the whore, and the latter tried to get out whilst Anamaria was still standing there. But finally it was just the two of them.   
  
Anamaria stepped forward and hit him, hard, on the face.   
  
"Ow!"   
  
"You deserve it," she pointed out.   
  
"What for?" Sparrow moved backwards and sat down, twitching the long chain which attached him to the cell wall out of the way. "And what the hell are you doing here, Ana? Dressed like that?"   
  
"I expected to find you … well, I did not expect to find you with a woman!" Anamaria said, still furious and not entirely sure why.   
  
"I've got a couple of weeks in this place," Sparrow said, "and I fully intend to get as much pleasure out of 'em as I can. It's not going to be much. Hardly the luxury of Fort Charles, here." He folded his arms. "Still haven't explained your presence, love."   
  
"I …" She sighed, exhausted, suddenly, and without heed for her blue skirts sank on to the straw-covered floor alongside her friend. "We heard about the _Pearl_," she said. "In Tortuga. I am sorry, Jack."   
  
He shrugged. "Aye. But that don't explain what you're doing in Newgate."   
  
"They said you were to hang." She continued with her tale, raising a brief smile from him as she described Briggs's involvement. But the smile disappeared, and Sparrow listened with uncharacteristic gravity as Anamaria told of her voyage to London and her doings since arrival.   
  
When she concluded, he sighed. "Oh, Ana."   
  
"_Quoi_?"   
  
"This ain't Port Royal. This is Newgate Gaol. I've no ship at hand to carry us away, even if we could get out of here. And in case you ain't noticed, I'm chained to the bloody wall." He demonstrated, tugging at the chain which was linked to the shackle around his ankle. "In a matter o' days, they'll cart me out of here, take me down to Execution Dock, and I'll swing for the seagulls. Much as I hate to say it, love, I reckon Jack Sparrow's luck's run out."   
  
She glared at him. "You should not say that."   
  
"The _Pearl_'s at the bottom of the Caribbean, Ana. The crew's dead. Even if you could get me out, what've I got to look forward to?"   
  
"You managed ten years without her, once," she said.   
  
"Always knew I'd get her back." His eyes, oddly naked without the kohl lining them, met hers. "She, at least, died the right way. She went down fightin'."   
  
"Then fight!" Anamaria exclaimed, getting up and pacing the three steps across the cell and back. "At least try, Jack. I got in. I am sure we can get you out."   
  
"Hush, love." He sent an expressive look towards the door, still ajar. "Already done too much talking. They hang lasses here, too."   
  
"I am no longer a girl, Jack," she said.   
  
"They hang women, too," he returned. "For God's sake, Ana, just get out, and go home to your nevvie. How old's the lad?"   
  
"_Huit ans_," she said, thinking of Zac. "Only eight."   
  
"Needs his aunt. Go on."   
  
She dropped belatedly into French, in case of the guard loitering outside. "I have to get you out, Jack. You cannot die like this!"   
  
He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the stone wall. "Thanks for coming, love. Safe journey back to Tortuga, eh?"   
  
There was finality in his voice.   
  
Anamaria turned on her heel, and stalked out. 


	7. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

----

**Chapter 6**

It was cool inside the shop, and dark. Anamaria touched the merchandise with a reverent finger, and knew she had found the right place.

She had left Newgate two days earlier filled with despondency, and almost ready to do as Jack Sparrow suggested and go back to the Caribbean. After changing back into her comfortable breeches and shirt, she had gone and got uncharacteristically drunk in the taproom of the 'Dagger'.

But Anamaria was not one to lose hope - something, she considered ironically, that she had learned from the formerly irrepressible Sparrow. And so the next day, with her head aching a little, she set out to find allies.

The innkeeper at the 'Dagger' had been a little help, directing her to a friend of his, "who might be able to help you". The friend had indeed been useful, and had nodded when Anamaria explained what she was looking for. So it was that on this morning, she had taken a ferry across the Thames and then paid for a seat on a cart heading east to the village of Greenwich.

There was building work going on here too, and several large naval vessels anchored along the riverbank. But once she had climbed down from the cart, Anamaria headed into the centre of the little village and swiftly found the shop with the hammer and anvil sign hanging outside it.

Now, she wandered around examining the beautiful swords hanging from racks on the walls, and remembering the day Jack Sparrow had received such a weapon. It had been sent in a wooden case to Tortuga, where - astonishingly - the owner of the 'Faithful Bride' had looked after it until Sparrow turned up. She wondered what had happened to the sword.

A door opened, and a skinny lad came in, wiping hands on a leather apron.

"Can I help you, sir?" he asked, politely.

Anamaria turned around. "I was hoping to speak to your master, if he is here?"

"He's workin', out back," said the boy. "I'll fetch him."

He disappeared, and returned in a few moments with a tall man, clad also in a leather apron with sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

"Jimmy said you were asking for me, sir?" the man began, before taking Anamaria in properly. He paused, and laid a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "Go and finish polishing the dagger for my lord Tiversham, Jimmy."

"Yes, sir!" The apprentice cast a last, curious look at Anamaria and hurried away.

The swordsmith folded his arms. "Anamaria, wasn't it?"

"Aye. You have a good memory, Mr Turner." She took off her hat, and laid it aside.

"What brings you to Greenwich?" asked William Turner, one-time rescuer of Jack Sparrow. "I must confess, it's quite a surprise."

"Jack," she said, simply.

The corners of Turner's mouth turned up, as if he were suppressing a smile. "I've put the Caribbean, and all that happened there, behind me. I had my wife to think of. I haven't spoken to, or heard of, Jack Sparrow for five years."

"Next week," Anamaria said tightly, "they hang Jack Sparrow on Execution Dock. He is in Newgate."

"Oh." Turner looked away from her, and straightened a sword that was marginally out of place. "Well - I'm sorry, but I cannot say I am surprised. Except that he is still alive. I hardly thought he'd have survived this long."

"I need your help to get him out." She stared at him, defying him to avert his gaze again. "He would not listen to me."

Turner raised his eyebrows. "He wouldn't? Sounds unlike Jack Sparrow, to turn down an offer of escape." He shook his head. "I can't help you."

"You would see him dead?" Anamaria felt as though the deck was tilting away from her in a storm.

"Dead? No … but …" The swordsmith broke off as the door opened, letting in a blast of cold air and a fresh, perfumed scent along with a flurry of pale blue material.

"Will!" The newcomer hurried across to Turner, and planted a kiss on his cheek before looking round. "Oh, I beg your pardon - you've a customer."

"Madame Turner," Anamaria said.

Turner's wife, a slim, elegantly beautiful woman, turned to Anamaria. "Oh!" Her eyes narrowed. "Oh." She took off her gloves and folded them neatly together. "It's a long way from Port Royal."

The swordsmith took Mrs Turner's arm and steered her off to the side of the room, where their heads bent together and he evidently explained the situation. At the end of the talk, both Turners looked up again.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Mrs Turner asked, smoothly polite.

Two can play at this, Anamaria thought, and accepted with the same politeness.

Jimmy was called back to mind the shop, and Anamaria followed the Turners through into a neat and comfortably-appointed - but not overly lavish - parlour. There she was offered a seat, and Mrs Turner disappeared to fetch the tea.

Neither Turner nor Anamaria said anything whilst his wife was out of the room. Anamaria picked at her nails and thought of her nephew, safe under the sunny skies of Tortuga island. Turner seemed to be examining the scuffed toes of his boots.

Eventually, Mrs Turner returned with a tray, and proceeded to pour. She passed Anamaria a cup, and took a seat.

"So," she began, "you say Jack Sparrow is in Newgate Gaol?"

"Aye. And they be forging his gibbet now too," said Anamaria. "I cannot help him alone."

"No, you wouldn't be able to," Mrs Turner said, sipping tea. "To get people out of Newgate, you need power, or money."

"I have money."

Mrs Turner nodded. "Doubtless. But enough to pay off the executioner?"

Anamaria looked down at the tea in her cup, and swirled it a little.

"This isn't the Caribbean," he said. "And there are more important people here than Elizabeth's father - sorry, love - to get in the way of any daft escape plan. If I tried what I did in Port Royal, I'd hang too."

"And there's no ship here, to pick him up afterwards," Elizabeth Turner added. "What has happened to the _Black Pearl_?"

Anamaria explained, succinctly.

The Turners exchanged glances. "I'm sorry," William Turner said, after a moment. "I know what that ship meant to Jack."

"You cannot do," said Anamaria, growing tired of being polite. "You should do - your father knew it. But how much time did you spend aboard her?"

"Several days," Mrs Turner defended herself.

"No, you're right," Turner agreed. "We can't understand. But what you must understand, Anamaria, is that I have a respectable business here, and a family to support. I cannot risk that."

"We came back to England," Elizabeth Turner put in, "to start afresh. And Will has done well. Can you not see that?"

"It is Jack Sparrow!" exclaimed Anamaria, standing up. "Your father's closest friend."

"I got him out of prison once and off the gallows once," Turner returned. "Is that not sufficient? He's a pirate, for God's sakes; it's a miracle he's still alive now. I can't afford to pay for his release, and I can't afford to break him out."

Anamaria clapped her hat on her head. "_Bien_. I see. He hangs on Friday, should you wish to watch. If you change your mind, I have a room at the 'Dagger', on the street called Holborn. _Bonne journée, m'sieu, madame_." She nodded at them, and walked briskly out of the room.

She dreamed that night. The _Black Pearl_, with a full compliment of crew - Joshamee Gibbs, bewhiskered and jovial; silent Cotton and his talkative parrot; little Marty; the rest - was sailing under clear skies, her captain at the helm. The black sails were spread like stormclouds above their heads, and the ship forged through blue waters. Sparrow was singing the idiotic song Elizabeth Turner had once taught him, loud and off-key.

Anamaria looked down at her hands, and found that instead of coiling a rope they were knotting a noose. She called to Sparrow, to warn him, and found Admiral Norrington had replaced the captain at the helm, and his uniform was black.

The clouds had rolled in now, and the rain began to fall. But the _Pearl_'s crew did not notice, continuing to unfurl sail after sail after sail. The ship picked up speed, rocking and rolling in the rough water, and Anamaria fought her way aft, searching for Sparrow.

"Jack!" she shouted. "Jack!"

Norrington turned empty eyes to her. "The Turners have him," he said, pointing over the stern. And sure enough, there was Jack Sparrow, bobbing in a longboat with the swordsmith and his wife. As Anamaria watched, he raised a hand to her - and then the boat was gone.


	8. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

----

**Chapter 7**

There were, Anamaria discovered the next day, very few ships sailing for the Caribbean within the next week. None of them had need for another sailor. She found the news simultaneously depressing and vindicating - she could not take the advice of Jack Sparrow or the Turners even if she wished to, or not immediately at any rate.

So she went back to the inn. The innkeeper greeted her cheerfully enough, and pointed into a corner of the main room. "Got a visitor," he said.

"A visitor?" Anamaria peered into the gloom. "Thanks." She crossed over, and to her great astonishment found William Turner, in a good coat and hat, nursing a small mug of ale. He looked up.

"Anamaria."

"Mr Turner."

"Oh, for heavens' sakes call me Will!" he said. He looked down at the mug. "I came to apologise for yesterday. We could have been more courteous."

"You were not much help," Anamaria said, sliding into a seat.

"We weren't expecting to see you," Turner returned. "I'm afraid you rather took us by surprise. And your news …" He tailed off, and raised his drink to his lips. She watched him. After a moment, he put the ale down again. "How is he? Jack, I mean?"

"Sad," Anamaria said. "Like … like he lost someone he loved very much. I think it is the _Pearl_ he is thinking about most, not that he is to hang."

"Oh." Turner frowned. "I feel bad about the whole thing, although I know it is not my fault. It's so long since we saw Jack - in fact, we only met him once or twice since the Barbossa affair."

"_Quand meme_," said Anamaria, "he was your father's best friend."

"My father died because of Jack Sparrow," Turner replied, his face going curiously blank. "But Elizabeth lives because of him." He drained his ale. "I want to see him. I spent last night considering, and I think I might be able to help. I would like to help."

Anamaria stared at him. Turner's face lost the blankness, and he smiled, which somehow made his already-handsome features even more so.

"I'm a blacksmith," he said. "I have a workshop full of steel and iron. Jack, you told us, is shackled, and therefore needs a key." He dug in a pocket and produced a ball of clay. "I'll make him one."

"You can?"

"Of course I can. If we visit today, I can have the key back to you by Thursday."

They wasted no time. En route to Newgate, Turner asked about how Anamaria had spent the past years. In return, she discovered that on arrival in England five years previously, he and his wife had set up their shop and begun their family. There was one small Turner already, and the business was running smoothly producing swords for the Navy and for private individuals. Turner's beautiful weapons were hugely fashionable and were to be seen on the hips of many a nobleman at Court.

On arrival at the prison, Anamaria was surprised to watch her companion turn on the charm, slipping coins into the guard's hand to get them inside. She was, unexpectedly, reminded of his father during some long-ago raid.

But then they were inside the dim dankness of the gaol, and Turner was pressing a handkerchief to his mouth - once again a gentleman, instead of a pirate. Anamaria led the way to Jack Sparrow's cell, hoping that he would be alone this time.

The door was shut, and they peered through the grilled window into the little room.

"You're blockin' me light," said Sparrow, from inside. "What's to do?"

"Jack?" Anamaria said, and there was the rattling of a chain as he got to his feet and came as close to the door as his restraints would allow him. "I found Will Turner."

"Bloody hell," Sparrow exclaimed. "Lad?"

"Hello, Jack." Anamaria moved aside to let Turner have a better view through the grille. "How are you?" the swordsmith asked.

"Fine. Thanks. You look just like your dad, what I can see of you. How's the lovely 'Lizabeth?"

"She's well, thank you," said Turner. "Jack … I … I'm sorry."

"Nobody's immortal," Sparrow cut in. "Well, 'cept Barbossa and his band o' lubbers, for a time, and me, for a bit. But even that didn't last very long. Don't waste your tears on old Jack, boy."

Turner folded his hands behind his back. "Actually, I meant I was sorry about the _Pearl_. Anamaria told us."

"Oh, that." From her sideways vantage point, Anamaria caught a brief glimpse of gold teeth. "No matter, mate. She and I had a good time."

"As for the other thing …" Turner delved in a pocket, and brought out his lump of clay, wrapped in a scrap of fabric. "Quickly now - what you need to do is …"

"Pass it over," Sparrow said, his voice suddenly a little sharper. "I've been breakin' out of gaols since I was a lad."

There was another round of rattling chains, and Anamaria glanced nervously up and down the corridor for guards. She had one hand on the dagger concealed at her hip just in case.

Whilst Jack Sparrow was busy with the clay inside the cell, Turner quickly pressed another lump into the keyhole of the door. When he extracted it, an impression of the keyhole was left. He rewrapped the clay and secreted it in a pocket, and soon had Sparrow's piece safe too.

"You two had best go," said Sparrow. "Ana?"

She came to the grille, and peered inside at Jack Sparrow. His whole demeanour had changed, and she thought she recognised the old spark once more. "_Quoi_?"

"Sendin' a messenger with Will's bits o' metal might not be a bad thing. Don't visit again. If this works, I'll meet you by Tyburn Tree day after tomorrow. You know where that is?"

"_Oui_."

"Good lass. Will?"

"Jack?"

"Ta, mate."

Turner nodded.

"Well, hurry off, then," Sparrow urged them. "Got work to do, haven't you?"

He turned, the beads clacking in his hair and the chain clanking, and shuffled to sit down with his back against the wall of the cell. He flicked his hand at them. "Go on!"

They went, neither speaking until they were out of the gaol and several streets away. Turner let out a deep breath.

"God, that was horrible."

"It is not a nice place," Anamaria agreed.

"And Jack … how can he be so … flippant?"

She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Flippant?"

"I mean, how can he act as if it doesn't matter?"

"He's Jack Sparrow," she pointed out. "He knows it matters. He just does not want you to know that he cares. Now go - you have work to do, Mr Turner."

"Will, please. You're right, I had better get back. I shall send Jimmy with the keys when they're ready. He's a trustworthy lad, and I think he should be able to manage the task." He touched his hat. "Good day, Anamaria. I'm glad I can help. But please, don't bring Jack to Greenwich if this succeeds. Norrington will certainly come to see if we know where he is."

Turning away, he strode off in the direction of the river and ferries back towards Greenwich.

Anamaria wandered off more slowly. Turner's visit had been a surprise - a pleasant one, certainly, but after the previous day's reception, still a surprise. She reflected on the man he had become. There was a trace of the impetuousness that, nine years earlier, had caused the young Will Turner to leap up on the rail of the _Black Pearl_ and put a gun to his own head in order to save the girl he loved. But mostly, Turner now reminded Anamaria of his father. Not just in looks, though the resemblance was close. Will Turner, she saw, would be the same steady, calm influence on those around him as the elder Bill Turner had been, and yet willing - where necessary - to do something that others would see as crazed, in order to help a friend.

She suddenly found she was ravenously hungry, and went to find some food. London did not seem to offer very much more than meat, and variations on it, mostly somewhat suspect, but the pasties available from bakers, butchers and carts on the street were generally tasty. Anamaria ate and watched the builders at work on the new cathedral that was slowly being erected close to Newgate. She had heard that the church was to be a masterpiece, with a great dome on top, but as yet it was only half-complete.

Two days later Anamaria had her bags packed, and was hanging anxiously around the inn waiting for Will Turner's apprentice to appear. Part of her doubted that he would ever turn up, but the other half trusted the swordsmith.

Jimmy arrived in the early afternoon, and displayed the keys for her perusal. They were rough-edged, but serviceable.

"You know what to do?" she asked the boy.

He nodded. "I'm to take them to a man called Sparrow, in Newgate. And Mr Turner says as how I'll know him by stuff in his hair."

"That's right. Can you do this?"

"No problem," Jimmy said, with a beaming grin. "Missus Turner don't know, but I did a bit of fingersmithin' 'afore Mister Turner took me on as his 'prentice. I've been into Newgate before, and out. One o' the things you learn on the street." He tucked the keys away. "It'll be easy. What's Mister Sparrow in for? Mister Turner never said."

"Can you keep a secret?" Anamaria asked.

Jimmy gave her a scornful look. "Course I can."

"He's a pirate. And a good one. Best in the Caribbean," she said. "But he's not a bad man."

The boy's eyes had widened. "A pirate? A real one?"

"Very," Anamaria told him.

Jimmy fought the urge to look more impressed, and failed. But he stayed calm, and patted his pocket. "Best go and free him, then, hadn't I?" He grinned at her, and ran off.

Left alone, Anamaria had nothing to do except collect her bag, pay the innkeeper for the time she had spent in the 'Dagger', and begin the long walk to Tyburn.


	9. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

----

**Chapter 8**

Tyburn without the crowds of a hanging day was a desolate place. The gallows stood, ominous and silent, overlooking a muddy field. From her seat underneath a tree, Anamaria could see the road leading back into London and smoke rising from the buildings at the edge of the city. 

A solitary noose hung from the gallows-tree, moving gently sideways in the breeze. Anamaria shivered and hugged her arms around herself. 

It was a long time before anyone appeared on the road from the city. She looked up at the sound of cart wheels, and watched silently as it approached. But nobody jumped out, and the solitary driver did not even notice her as the cart rattled past the crossroads and on, towards Oxford. 

She began to entertain all the possible reasons why Jack Sparrow had not come. Perhaps Jimmy had not gone to Newgate. Or had been unable to get inside. Maybe they had been caught on the way out. The boy and the pirate could be under renewed guard, or worse, dead. 

The thoughts began to depress her after a while, and instead Anamaria began to systematically work through her memories of all the time Jack Sparrow had escaped from prisons. There were the times in Port Royal, of course, with the help of Will Turner. But also she remembered the evening a bedraggled young pirate had clambered back aboard the _Black Pearl_ after weeks in the hands of the East India Company, when the entire crew had given him up for lost. And there had been other seemingly miraculous escapes, brought about through a mixture of luck and skill. 

She pulled out a hunk of bread, and chewed it as she waited. Dusk was falling now, and Anamaria wondered how long she ought to wait before either heading back into the city or risking the open road at night. Taking out her dagger, she tested the point and was pleased to find it sharp - but still, she wished she had a pistol at hand too. 

A lone horseman rode by. Anamaria looked up, but this was no Sparrow, and soon the horse's hoofbeats had faded into the night. 

It was perhaps half an hour later when she heard the singing. She gripped the hilt of her dagger and waited. The voice grew closer, and now she could make out the cheerful, off-key words. 

"Yo ho, yo ho," the voice sang, "a pirate's life for me!" 

Anamaria smiled, and stood up. 

Underneath the gallows tree, the singer halted. The figure was draped in something nondescript and shapeless, and was bent over with a basket on its arm. It looked up, put the basket down, and shrugged off the drapes. 

Anamaria, trying not to break into a run, hurried across to the singer. 

"Jack!" she said, joyfully. 

"Sorry I'm late," said Jack Sparrow, grinning a glinting grin. 

She hesitated a moment, torn between hitting him and hugging him. Elation won out, and she threw her arms around his too-thin frame. He took a second to respond, but returned the embrace with verve. 

"I was worried it had gone wrong," Anamaria said, once the hug was over. 

Sparrow picked up his basket. "Food? No? Don't mind if I do, do you?" He brought out a pasty and bit into it. "Nah, that Jimmy was a sharp'un if ever I saw one. Slipped into the gaol as easy as you like …" He paused, chewed and swallowed, and said, "Reckon we ought to be movin' on. We'd best be well on our way to Portsmouth 'afore dawn." 

She nodded, and they set off. Jack Sparrow continued his tale. 

"Anyway, he got himself into Newgate and found me. Don't know what you said to him, love, but he was all starry-eyed and quite won over with the idea of meeting a pirate." 

Anamaria smiled. 

"Young Will's keys worked a treat," Sparrow went on, "and soon we were nipping out of that place, me with a great hat on me head and pretendin' to be a beggar. Luckily the guards are slowish, so out we came into Newgate Street. I'd have set off there'n'then to meet you, 'cept Jimmy had a better idea. Turned out his gran sells fish in Eastcheap, so we popped along to see her and laid low there until he had to get back to Greenwich and we guessed it'd be safe for me to toddle along here. Gran lent me a shawl, and chopped off me beard - and that feels odd, it does - and I pretended I was an old woman if anyone came near." 

"You cut off your beard?" Anamaria peered at him in the darkness, and realised that indeed the neatly-plaited beard had been shorn from Sparrow's chin. 

"Wasn't prepared to be taken up as the Bearded Woman at the fair," Sparrow pointed out. "It worked, anyway, and here I am." 

"_Et maintenant_?" Anamaria asked. 

Sparrow walked for a few paces without saying anything, and she watched him sideways. 

"Now?" he said, eventually. 

"Yes." 

"We head for Portsmouth." 

"But are there not lots of Navy people there?" she said. 

"Hide in plain sight," Sparrow returned, as if it was obvious. To him, it probably was. 

They walked well into the night, and took shelter for a few hours in an old hut. Anamaria was exhausted, and fell asleep immediately; but waking once or twice due to the cold she saw Sparrow sitting up, his head against the wall, gazing into the darkness. 

In the morning light they set off again, amid mist rising from the fields. Examining Jack Sparrow as they walked, Anamaria was shocked at his appearance. Cutting off the beard had made him look younger, but his face was gaunt and devoid of its usual tan. He looked ill, and she could not recall ever having seen him anything other than full of verve, lit from within by a particularly Sparrow-like spark. 

"Have we got enough food?" she asked. 

He displayed the contents of his basket - dried apples, some bread and a couple of pies. "Enough." 

They continued walking. After a while, he launched into one of his stories, something about a French merchant and a velvet coat, and she listened and tried to pick through the words to work out what he was not telling her. 

That evening they risked an inn. In the privacy of their room Sparrow took off the scarf wrapped around his hair and shook out the braids so that they jangled. 

"Have you got a knife?" he asked. 

Anamaria, occupied with picking burrs out of her own locks, looked up. "Eh?" 

"A knife," Sparrow repeated. "It occurs to me that Norrington's little helpers'll be looking for Jack Sparrow, complete with all he should come with." He held a strand of beads before his eyes and squinted at them. "It'll grow back, anyway." 

She took out her knife, and touched its edge. "Are you sure?" 

"You've got me this far," Sparrow said. "Let's get home before we start worrying about such fripperies as beads and hair, shall we?" He pulled a chair up to the edge of the bed, and sat on it. "Go on. Before I change me mind." 

Taking one thick hank of hair between her fingers, Anamaria began to cut. Pieces of hair, intermingled with trinkets, fell to the wooden boards, and all the while Sparrow stared fixedly ahead. She was glad she could not see his expression. 

Once she was finished, having hacked off the strands of beads and chopped his hair to shoulder length, she picked up the discarded ornaments and passed them to him. 

"Later, you will need these," she said. 

He stood up, and turned around. "What does it look like?" 

To Anamaria, it was as if the years had rolled away, and the young daredevil pirate she had once known stood before her. Sparrow looked more like an untested boy than a seasoned captain. 

"Norrington will not recognise you," she said. 

He looked pleased. "Good. That's the whole point. Now we can travel a little faster and get a lift on the stagecoach tomorrow. Sooner we get to Portsmouth, the sooner we'll find a vessel." 

They swept the hair into the fireplace, where it burnt with a terrible smell, and then both pulled off their boots. Sparrow waved a hand towards the bed. 

"Go on, love, you take it. I'll bed down by the fire. Warmer." 

"How long is it that you've been a gentleman?" Anamaria asked, turning back the thin blanket. 

"Truth is," said Sparrow, rolling himself in Jimmy's grandmother's wraps, "it's been too long since I slept in a bed. I'll get more rest this way. Go on. We've a long way to go tomorrow." 

She slid under the cover, and closed her eyes to Sparrow's soft humming of a sea shanty. 


	10. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

**Author's note:** apologies for the delay in posting this chapter; thanks for the comments! 

----

**Chapter 9**

On the outskirts of Portsmouth Anamaria and Jack Sparrow jumped down from the cart in which they had ridden for the morning, and paused to examine each other. Sparrow reached out and tucked a tendril of hair back underneath Anamaria's hat, before straightening his shirt. 

"What do you reckon?" he asked. 

"Not like Jack Sparrow," she said, surveying him. 

"Good. Now, I ain't going to talk like Jack Sparrow either, and I suggest you leave me to do all the chattering. Right?" 

She nodded. 

He gave her a grin. "Cheer up, love. You've got a face as long as nine ells o' rope." 

They set off into the city, Sparrow's feet finding their way unerringly on roads that were once familiar. Through the narrow streets smelling of fish they headed to the harbour, where hundreds of vessels were moored. From small fishing boats to great galleons, the ships offered Anamaria and her companion plenty of choice. 

Wandering along the quayside, they examined the options. There were several large ships which were clearly merchant vessels, riding high and empty in the water. Three of them were being loaded with provisions in preparation for a voyage, and the two pirates slowed their pace and eyed up the barrels and crates being taken on board to determine where the ships might be going. 

A three-masted square-rigger with an elaborate figurehead of a buxom woman looked particularly likely. Sparrow peered up at her stern. "_Rosemary_," he read. "Pretty dull name for a ship." He glanced over his shoulder at Anamaria. "How 'bout it?" 

She shrugged. The ship looked likely enough to her, seaworthy and well-maintained. 

Standing at the bottom of the gangplank, Jack Sparrow hailed the vessel. 

"Ahoy there!" he cried. "Permission to come aboard?" 

A sailor came to the rail, peering over. "On what business?" he asked. 

"Looking for a berth," Sparrow called back. 

"Better come up, then," said the sailor. 

Sparrow trotted quickly up the gangplank, closely followed by Anamaria, and the sailor directed them both to the captain in his cabin. 

"Couple o' new hands, cap'n," the sailor said, as he pushed open the door. 

"Excellent!" the captain replied, standing up from a table covered in paper and crossing to greet the newcomers. "I needed more people. Have a seat, have a seat." 

They pulled up chairs and sat down, the captain back behind his charts. 

"So," said the captain, "looking for work?" 

"That we are," said Sparrow, speaking with an accent, not his own, that tugged at Anamaria's memory somehow. "Depends on where you might be going." 

"We're setting a course for Barbados, to take on sugar." 

Anamaria looked at Sparrow, who nodded. "We'd take that," he said. 

"I assume you've sailed before?" asked the captain. "It would be odd if you hadn't, of course, but one never knows." 

"Old hands before the mast, both of us," Sparrow agreed. 

The captain clapped his hands together, apparently delighted. "Wonderful. Well, you both seem likely enough. I'd be happy to take you on. You'd be from Yorkshire, I think, Mr …" 

"Swift," said Sparrow. "James Swift. Aye, that's right. Whitby." 

"Good sailing town," the captain approved. "I'd imagine your friend is going home." He beamed at Anamaria, who assented with a nod. 

"My name is André," she said. "I'm from Haïti." 

"And I am Hugh Harvey," said the captain. He stood up, rummaging in a drawer for something, and patted the bulkhead. "This is _Rosemary_. She's a good vessel." He brought a salt-stained book back to the table, opening it on a half-filled page, and wrote for a short while. "Please sign here - you'll be agreeing to the usual terms, and two shillings a week plus rations for our voyage." 

Sparrow and Anamaria both signed. Anamaria noticed that Sparrow had discarded his usual signature-with-a-flourish for something neat and precise. She herself wrote her pseudonym down carefully; it was one of the few things she knew how to write, and she paid attention to forming the letters whenever she had to sign it. 

Captain Harvey shook sand on the ink to dry it, blew it off, and closed the articles. 

"Welcome aboard!" he said. "Now, before I let you go to collect your things - you'll need the usual, of course - can either of you use a sword, or fire a cannon? We may, you know, encounter pirates en route to Barbados." 

"I can fight a little," said Sparrow. 

"I too," added Anamaria. 

Harvey made a note of the fact. "Good. I see our luck was in when you two walked by. We sail on the morrow, but we must finish loading today. Be back shortly after noon." 

"Aye, sir!" said Sparrow, smartly. 

Back on land, Jack Sparrow seemed to have brightened up somewhat. He was in a cheerful mood as they went to buy spare clothes, rough canvas bags to keep them in, a hat for Sparrow and blankets for both of them. Anamaria found herself responding to his chatter with smiles and even the occasional burst of laughter. This was a little more the old Sparrow - except for that puzzling accent. 

"Why are you speaking like that?" she asked, eventually, as they made their way back to the _Rosemary_ with their purchases. 

"Remember old Thornton?" Sparrow said. "First mate aboard the _Pearl_ when you joined her?" 

She thought back, her brow creasing. 

"A beard," she said. "A man who was very honourable." 

"Good man," Sparrow agreed. "Anyhow, he came from Whitby, up north in Yorkshire. I'm borrowing his voice for a while. I reckon Norrington'll be lookin' for the old Sparrow, every bit of him." He stopped walking, and turned to her. "D'you see him, love?" 

Anamaria shook her head. "_Non_." She looked him up and down - the drab clothes, short hair, lack of Sparrow-jaunt - and repeated herself. "No." 

"Good." He grinned, shouldered his bag, and set off at a stride towards the harbour. "C'mon, we've a ship to catch." 

After an afternoon spent hefting crates and barrels and ensuring the hold was properly packed, Anamaria found herself exhausted and she collapsed into her hammock gratefully. Sparrow's bed was strung up close by her, and as she fell asleep she heard him snoring gently. 

In the morning the entire crew assembled on deck. Captain Harvey, dressed in a smart jacket and hat, stood on the quarterdeck and beamed down at them all. Beside him was the ship's bo'sun, a grizzled old sailor with very blue eyes. 

"Once we're out of the harbour," Harvey said, "the starboard watch will take us down Channel. Port watch on at four bells. Now, all hands to your posts - and next port call will be La Rochelle." 

He and the bo'sun began relaying orders. Swinging herself out over the side of the ship, Anamaria began climbing the ratlines towards her post halfway up the foremast, where the great sails were to be unfurled. Once she was hanging over the boom, she glanced around and saw Sparrow at the top of the mainmast, perched on the line like the bird he was named for. But there was no time to reflect on the sight of her friend back on board a ship, for the commands were coming up from below and there was work to do. 

Slowly the _Rosemary_ moved out into the Solent, and thence into the wide, dark waters of the English Channel. Blue ocean beckoned, and then, freedom. 


	11. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

----

**Chapter 10**

La Rochelle past, the _Rosemary_ beat on south under good trade winds. She halted for supplies in the Canary Islands before turning southwest and setting a course for the Caribbean. They had been lucky with the weather, and lucky in encountering none of the pirates and privateers who plied their trade off the coast of Africa. 

Anamaria found she was enjoying the voyage. Captain Harvey, eternally good-humoured, was also a good leader and he had chosen a good crew. All the men were friendly, and although a few disputes arose - as was wont to happen aboard ship - nothing serious occurred. 

And Sparrow was more relaxed. The open skies and the waters spread out for miles seemed to have awoken his spirit again. He could once more be relied on for tall tales and tuneless but rousing sea-shanties, though Anamaria noticed he avoided all the pirates' favourites and stuck to the more ribald of a standard sailor's repertoire. 

So all was going well, and the ship was on schedule to beat the bad storms, when the day's lookout called down "Sail ho!" from the mainmast. 

Jack Sparrow and Anamaria were not on duty, instead sitting together mending clothes. They, like the rest of the crew, stood and gazed out to sea, trying to catch a glimpse of the other ship. On the quarterdeck, Captain Harvey had his telescope out and was peering into it. 

Shortly, word came that for now they were assuming the other vessel was only another merchant. Anamaria sat down and turned her attention back to her torn shirt, but Sparrow stayed leaning on the rail staring out to sea. Eventually he sat down again. 

"That's no merchant," he said quietly to Anamaria. "That's Van Arps, that is, out o' Aruba. Nice piece of work. Heard tell he had someone quartered once, for pinching a silk scarf." 

"_Qu'est-ce qu'on fait, alors_?" Anamaria asked, wondering if this was the time for herself and Sparrow to defect to the incoming pirates and ask them for a lift back to Tortuga, or whether siding with the likeable Harvey would be of more use. 

"That may depend on what our estimable cap'n decides," said Sparrow. "If it looks like we're to pile on sail and outrun 'em - easy to know what to do. But if Van Arps catches us, and _Rosie_'s off to meet Davy Jones, then Jack Sparrow might be back in business. I don't hold with Van Arps's ways, though. Bit too ruthless for my mind." 

As he spoke, the lookout called again. 

"Jolly Roger! Skull 'n crossbones, and a cannon!" 

"Van Arps," Sparrow said, resigned. 

The entire crew was on its feet now, straining to catch a glimpse of the pirates. Harvey was consulting with the bo'sun and the helmsman, and snapped his telescope shut. 

"Right, gentlemen!" he said, "let's show them _Rosemary_'s stern, shall we? All hands, we're piling on canvas." 

Sparrow grinned at Anamaria and was off. 

Soon the _Rosemary_'s masts were creaking under the weight of the extra canvas, and the water was creaming under her bows. Harvey strode up and down the quarterdeck, casting his gaze back to where the tall sails of the pirate ship could be seen on the horizon. After ten minutes or so he spoke to the helmsman, who stepped aside allowing the captain to take control of his vessel. Glancing up at the tell-tales and the billowing sails, Harvey tweaked the steering to get the best speed from his _Rosemary_.

But Sparrow, standing towards the bows with Anamaria and several other sailors, was clearly ill at ease. He kept looking astern, then up at the sails, and back at the water. Anamaria, who knew her friend better than most, watched him and frowned. 

"We're pullin' away, ain't we?" someone said. 

"He won't catch us at this speed," another sailor agreed. 

Jack Sparrow laughed, hollowly. 

"No, he's catching us, all right," he said. "Slowly, but surely." 

"Well, that ain't very optimistic," the first sailor said. "C'mon, Jim, show a little faith, won't you?" 

"There's faith, and there's realism," Sparrow returned. "Right now, I'm being realistic. That ship's after us." He adjusted his hat and strode off towards the quarterdeck. 

"Now what's he doing?" asked one of the men left. "Good sailor, our Jim, but a bit odd sometimes. You've known 'im longest, André - what's he doing?" 

"I think," said Anamaria, cautiously, "I think he has recognised the ship." 

"He ought've said so before!" the sailor said. "Instead of being all mysterious." 

"He likes being mysterious," said Anamaria. 

The group turned to watch what Sparrow was doing. He had arrived below the quarterdeck and was looking up, talking to Harvey with much gesticulation. By an unspoken accord, the sailors moved closer to hear what he was saying. 

"That cannon," said Sparrow, waving his hand towards the _Rosemary_'s own flag, flying proudly from the stern, "the one on the Jolly Roger? You know why he has a cannon on his banner, cap'n?" 

"I don't," Harvey responded, "but I suspect you're about to tell me, Mr Swift." 

Sparrow nodded. "It's because that little ship of his carries twenty of 'em. And he uses them. No broadsides - he'll fire straight at us, aim for our masts, and then we'll be boarded. And the fact we're English'll just make it worse." 

"So how do you suggest we avoid this?" asked Harvey. "We can't outrun him, and our guns won't stand up to his." 

"Easy, cap'n." Sparrow was getting into his stride now. "Run up a flag of truce. Get out a few valuable items, hand 'em over, no fussing, sail away. Be respectful." 

"Of a pirate, Mr Swift?" Harvey looked incredulous. 

Anamaria looked down at her feet, and wondered how long Jack Sparrow, pirate captain, would remain concealed behind Jim Swift, honest sailor. Already Sparrow was showing more than a hint of himself. 

"A pirate with lots of guns," Sparrow pointed out. 

Captain Harvey was looking thoughtful. "You may have something there," he said. "It would at least seem prudent, if we cannot outrun the scoundrels, to escape with nothing more than a material loss. All right, Mr Swift, I approve of your plan. Some of you, bring up three barrels of ale and two of wine. There's a chest in my cabin with coin in it. Bring that up also. And one of the cases of French china." 

Sparrow grinned, put his hands together and bowed towards the captain. "Thanks, cap'n," he said. "André - let's fetch that case for Cap'n Harvey, shall we?" 

Following him down to the captain's cabin, Anamaria said, in brisk French, "You'll give yourself away, you know that?" 

"To who?" Sparrow asked, pushing open the door. "Oooh, this is nice." 

The cabin was nice, light and airy and impeccably clean. They found the small chest easily and lifted it together. 

"The captain's no fool," said Anamaria, "and just then you were not being entirely Swift." 

Pausing by the door, Sparrow met her eyes, and dropped the fake accent. "Ana, love, you've saved me from the gallows, and I'll not forget it. But I'm prepared to risk a little to make your trip to London worthwhile - if Van Arps blows us all to smithereens it'll have been a waste. So if Jim Swift allows the far greater sense of Jack Sparrow to emerge once or twice, let it pass." He raised his eyebrows. "Savvy?" 

She smiled. "I have missed you saying that." 

"Good. Then let's get back to somewhere where I can say it all the time, eh?" He opened the door, and backed through it. "Let's hope the pirates take the bait," he said, back in the Yorkshire accent, evidently for the benefit of anyone who might have been loitering outside. 

Anamaria, with her end of the chest, shook her head and wondered - not for the first time, and in all likelihood, not for the last - what had ever possessed her to chase Jack Sparrow to London and back. 

On deck, they found Captain Harvey had surrendered the helm and had ordered the furling of the main topsail. The _Rosemary_ was slowing, and from her stern a plain white banner flew above the Union Flag. For the next half an hour, Harvey strode around the ship giving more instructions, whilst Van Arps's vessel closed on them. Anamaria was given the job of uncoiling lines and generally making the usually impeccably neat _Rosemary_ look a little uncared for, whilst Sparrow was told off to go below and conceal weapons and valuables under boards and in barrels. 

Shortly, the lookout - equipped with a telescope - reported that the pirate ship was named _Aruba_. Harvey looked over his crew and his dishevelled craft, and sighed deeply. 

"Well, Mr Swift," he said to Sparrow, "here is where we see whether or not the plan has worked." 

"Fingers crossed, eh, cap'n?" said Sparrow. 

"Indeed." Harvey filled his lungs and hailed the approaching buccaneers. "Ahoy there, _Aruba_! We'll heave to, should that be your wish." 

Aboard the pirate ship, Anamaria could see a tall man in a very large hat and a green sash. He appeared to consult with others by his side, and shortly they heard the answer come floating back. 

"_Ja_!" 

Harvey turned to his crew. "You heard them. Heave to, gentlemen, and do pray for good luck." 


	12. Chapter 11

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

----

**Chapter 11**

The crew of the _Rosemary_ watched silently as the pirate ship swept up beside them, passed them by, and neatly hove to alongside. It was a neat manoeuvre, and Anamaria knew that Jack Sparrow would be keeping an eye on things critically as much as Captain Harvey would be. By her side, one of the crew whistled softly. "Nicely done," he said. 

But there was no time for further comment. A party of buccaneers had gathered on the deck of the _Aruba_, all armed impressively with pistol and sword. At their head was the green-sashed man, with a long, curved scimitar hanging from his belt. 

Without asking permission to come aboard, the pirates swung grappling irons and, once the hooks had caught in the _Rosemary_'s pristine woodwork, followed across the narrow gap between the two vessels. 

Anamaria felt for the dagger she kept always strapped to the small of her back, and was reassured to find it there. 

Captain Harvey, straight and proud, came to meet the invaders. 

"Captain Van Arps, I am told," he greeted them, polite but distant. 

"You are told well," said the tall man in the sash. "You have come into my waters, captain." 

"Harvey," said Harvey, "and this good vessel is the _Rosemary_. We're sailing out of Portsmouth for the Caribees and have little for you, I regret. What valuable items we carry are here." He gestured towards the crates, cases and barrels on deck. 

Van Arps glanced towards them disdainfully, and gave one of his men a nod to investigate the contents. Whilst the pirate was doing this, the Dutchman walked up and down the length of the _Rosemary_'s deck, examining the ship and her crew with a calculating eye. 

"You have a good ship," he said, at length. 

Harvey bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Likewise, captain." 

Looking back towards the pirate ship, Anamaria thought Harvey was being too kind. The vessel certainly had speed, but she was showing the signs of age. Patches of new, pale wood showed where she had been repaired after a fight, and her sails needed some work too. Loose lines lay uncoiled at the foot of the foremast. Anamaria glanced across to where Sparrow stood, and he met her gaze and returned it with an eloquent eyebrow lift and a slight grimace. 

The pirate going through Harvey's offerings closed the lid of the coin chest and crossed to his captain with a handful of golden guineas. Van Arps picked through them, bit one to determine its quality, and deposited the handful in a pocket. 

"Your coinage is good." 

"It ought to be!" said Harvey, with a slight tone of umbrage. "It was meant to pay for the cargo I am to pick up in the Caribbean." 

Van Arps smiled. It was unpleasant - a narrow-lipped leer, really, more than a smile. "It will help pay for you and your men to get to the Caribbean, Captain Harvey. But I cannot believe that one small box of coin, and a few plates and some barrels, are all the riches you have aboard." He turned to the other pirates and snapped an order in Dutch. Five of them disappeared below decks. 

Harvey remained unmoving, but Anamaria could feel her crewmates fidgeting with anxiety by her side. From below there was some banging, and shortly two of the pirates emerged with another barrel of wine. After a few more anxious minutes for the _Rosemary_'s men (and woman), the remaining three Dutchmen came back on deck, carrying an armful of clothes taken from the captain's cabin. A brief exchange in Dutch followed. 

Facing Harvey, Van Arps spread his hands. "Well, captain, it appears you are either telling the truth or this boat is built with many hiding-places. I congratulate you. And for your generosity," he indicated the things on deck, "and for your obliging way in heaving to for us, I propose to take what you offer and leave." 

"I thank you," Harvey returned. "Very good of you." 

"One last thing," said Van Arps, "I have a long memory, and I know we have not encountered one another before. Who is your man who recognised my ship?" 

Harvey looked around, as if deciding whether or not to brazen this one out or risk exposing his sailor Swift. But Jack Sparrow stepped forward. 

"That would be me, cap'n," he said, tugging at the brim of his hat politely. 

There was a long moment as Van Arps examined Sparrow from top to toe, taking in every inch of his appearance. "You are?" 

"James Swift, cap'n. Fisherman-turned-merchant sailor out o' Whitby." 

"And you came across me before?" 

"Once, cap'n. Just after I started sailing blue water. Not an event to forget, sir." Sparrow put on an expression that Anamaria recognised; it was his best 'innocent sailor' look. 

"Hmmm. Yet you look somewhat familiar, more than that should account for. Swift, you say?" 

"Aye, cap'n." 

Anamaria held her breath, and readied herself to whip out the hidden dagger and spring to Sparrow's aid. 

Van Arps shook his head. "I cannot place you. You have done your captain a service today, Swift." 

"Thank'ee, cap'n." 

Sparrow retreated, touching his hat again. And finally the pirates left, more slowly than they had come as they lifted the cargo aboard their ship. The grapples were unhooked, and thrown back aboard the _Aruba_. Her sails were unfurled, and with the same skill as she had been brought alongside the _Rosemary_, she pulled ahead, and then took a northeasterly course towards the coast of Africa. 

As the pirates disappeared, the _Rosemary_'s men let out a resounding cheer, and Sparrow was surrounded by crewmates slapping him on the back and generally congratulating him. There were congratulations called up to Harvey too, for the steady way in which he had handled the situation. 

Harvey accepted the praise, and then speaking to his bo'sun crossed to Sparrow. 

"A word, Mr Swift, if I may? You might want to bring young André along too." 

Anamaria followed the two men below. Above their heads they heard the sound of orders being called and the cheering replaced with the familiar noise of sails unfurling and catching the wind. The _Rosemary_ was on her way again. 

In Harvey's cabin, they moved the parchments the pirates had displaced off seats and sat down. Harvey surveyed his ransacked wardrobe ruefully. 

"I fear I shall be forced to appear in the same coat for the rest of the voyage," he said. "Now. Mr Swift. Time was pressing earlier, and I could not waste it asking you how you knew that ship. But now, and in the light of that appalling Dutchman's remarks, I ask again. There is no reason why he should have even thought he recognised you, unless you are more than you appear." 

"Must have reminded him of someone he once knew," said Sparrow easily. "I find that happens often."

"Come, come!" Harvey chided. "Please do not treat me as a fool, Swift. I am not one, and neither are you." 

"But what would you do, hypothetically-speaking," asked Sparrow, "if I turn out to be something you wouldn't like? Not that that's the case, of course." 

"What could I do?" Harvey said. "We are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Swift." 

Sparrow steepled his hands. "There are ways of gettin' rid of folk aboard ship, cap'n. I've seen it done." 

"Don't be ridiculous, man!" said Harvey. "You've just saved this ship from what could have been her end, and the end of her crew. If we had kept running, and that man had caught us …" He shuddered. "Well, I'd rather not think about it. Whatever your crime could be that necessitates you hiding your identity, let's have it." 

Anamaria glanced at Sparrow, who seemed lost in thought. Finally he looked up. 

"You're undertaking to keep us on," he said, "should you not like what you hear?" 

"I do undertake that," Harvey agreed. "Safe passage to the Caribbean, and back again, provided you continue your work, naturally." 

"Let's shake on it," said Sparrow. 

He and the captain shook hands, and Harvey settled back. "Now." 

With a sideways half-grin, only slightly apologetic, at Anamaria, Sparrow rolled up his right sleeve and unwound the ties of the handguard he habitually wore. Tossing the bit of worn leather on the table, he untied the filthy piece of cloth wrapped around his wrist and bared his forearm for Harvey's inspection. Even in the dim light of the cabin, the livid pink scarring of the old East India Company brand was clear. 

Harvey looked up, and met Sparrow's eyes. "'P' for pirate," he said, and it was not a question. 

"Aye, 'P' for pirate," said Jack Sparrow. He was still using Swift's northern accent. "Not, I must hasten to add, a pirate like that blackguard we've just met. Some of us have a little honour." 

"Honour amongst thieves?" Harvey questioned, with a raised eyebrow. "I fail to see much of a distinction, I am afraid." 

Sparrow leaned back in his chair, and Anamaria knew that poor Captain Harvey was about to be treated to a session of philosophy. "You can steal without taking what those you're stealing from need to survive," Sparrow said, holding up a finger. "You may kill, but there's no need to murder. Maim a vessel, not scupper her." A wave of pain crossed his face, briefly. "Show someone the point of a sword, give 'em a fright; not put a bullet in them." 

"Small differences," Harvey said, "yet I think I see what you're driving at, Mr Swift." He shrugged. "Well, I gave my word. I will not act on this knowledge, as you have given it in good faith. I assume that you, André, are also of the buccaneer persuasion?" 

Anamaria nodded. 

"I can," said Sparrow, "help you out a bit, cap'n, if you need more coin to get your cargo on board once we're in Barbados. I've got a bit hidden away, close to the fair isle of Tortuga. If you've need and no objection, we could take a small detour, s … see?" 

"Thank you for the offer," Harvey returned, "but I believe we shall manage." He rose from his seat. "Pirates are not the only ones to practice deceptions. We have plenty more coin aboard for our cargo. I brought more than was necessary - these waters are, after all, notorious." 

"Very sensible of you, cap'n," Sparrow approved. "I'm glad we've come to this accord." He began to wind the cloth around his forearm once more. 

"As am I," said Harvey. "We shall keep our conversation between ourselves, I believe. Best that the men do not know, given this afternoon's events. Thank you, Mr Swift, André." 

Jack Sparrow and Anamaria stood up, acknowledged the captain, and left the cabin. 

Sparrow, his eyes dancing, grinned a proper, shiny grin at Anamaria. "That went well," he said. 

She shook her head in exasperation, and hurried up on deck. It was their watch, and there was much to be done. 


	13. Chapter 12

_**Disclaimer:** see prologue._

**Author's note:** Thanks for all the comments throughout this story. I've enjoyed writing Anamaria, and hope you've enjoyed reading her! Happy New Year. 

----

**Chapter 12**

Thankfully for all the crew of the _Rosemary_, there were no more encounters with pirates during the rest of the voyage to Barbados. They were battered by two nasty storms, but Harvey kept his cool and the ship came out on the other side with only minor damage. There was an anxious morning for Anamaria and Sparrow when a Royal Navy ship appeared on the horizon, but her course was different to the _Rosemary_'s and the two vessels only exchanged cordial signals from afar. 

Finally, on a bright Caribbean morning, the ship came into harbour and dropped her anchor. Anamaria looked out at the palm trees on shore, gently bending in the sea breeze, and found herself smiling in pleasure. 

Captain Harvey gave his crew two days' shore leave once the ship had been put in order, but Sparrow and Anamaria went to find him in his cabin once they had packed their few belongings together. Sparrow wanted to find a boat that would take them the short journey to Tortuga, and he wanted to do it as soon as possible. 

Behind his table, Harvey was thoughtfully counting coins. They saw that he had indeed kept a sizeable amount safe from the pirates. He looked up and nodded in a friendly fashion. 

"I had a feeling I would be honoured with a visit from you two," he said, making a note of the coins he had counted and pushing the paper aside. "I imagine you'll be leaving _Rosemary_ behind?" 

"If you're willing," said Sparrow. "There's bound to be men you can take on in town. Our homes, such as we have, are here - or hereabouts." 

"I think it would be better for us all, indeed," Harvey agreed. "I do not wish to keep men on if they do not wish it, and I have no doubt you would prefer to disappear. You have both served the ship well, and I thank you." 

He counted out money for both of them; a fair wage for the time they had spent aboard. They pocketed it with thanks. 

"I'll spread the word," said Sparrow, "that the _Rosemary_ not be harmed. Try and give you a clear run home." 

Harvey raised an unbelieving eyebrow. "And will anyone listen to you, Mr Swift?" 

Jack Sparrow nodded. 

"Well, I do hope so," said Harvey, clearly doubtful. "Should I in turn learn not to fear your vessel?" 

"She was sunk," Sparrow said. "She lies on the sea floor, and half her men with her." He rose from his seat, and Anamaria followed suit. Sparrow took off his hat and swept Captain Harvey an elaborate, flamboyant bow. Dropping the Yorkshire accent he had affected for the last weeks, he said: "Instead of fearing me vessel, cap'n, just remember that you've a friend in Captain Jack Sparrow." He threw Anamaria a look, and added, for good measure, "savvy?" 

He clapped on his hat and before Harvey could react, disappeared out of the cabin. Anamaria touched her hand to her own hat and followed Sparrow quickly. He threw her her bag of things and swaggered down the gangplank on to Caribbean soil. 

Neither of them said anything until they were ensconced in a tavern with the first mugs of grog. Then Anamaria, determined to discover what had caused her friend's strange mood, folded her arms and faced him. 

"Jack, have you gone crazy, at last?" 

"Mad? Me?" He laughed, and she thought that perhaps he had. "Love, Harvey's a gentleman. He won't give us up." 

"How do you know that?" she asked. "How can you be so sure?" 

He swigged down a mouthful of grog, sighed at the taste, and put down the mug. 

"Why did you come for me?" he said. The question threw Anamaria, being so utterly at a tangent from what she had asked him. 

"_Je_ … I … I didn't want you dead," she said. It was an obvious answer, perhaps, but an honest one. 

"But what did you reckon I'd do, once you'd rescued me?" Sparrow pursued. His hand danced in the air. "Settle down like one o' those old drunkards in Tortuga, reminiscing all me life about the days when I was the terror of the Main?" 

Anamaria frowned at him. "You do that anyway." 

"But I still am the - a - terror of the seas," Sparrow said, confidently. "Else Norrington wouldn't have bothered coming after the _Pearl_. I'll do the story-telling, but I'll also go and add to the tales." 

"I did not think about afterwards," Anamaria said. She was going to continue, but caught a look from Sparrow that suggested he knew very well what she would say next. Rather than giving him the satisfaction of hearing it, she closed her mouth and picked up her mug. 

Sparrow finished his drink. "Let's think about afterwards when we're in Tortuga," he said. "First, there's passage to find." 

They soon found a boat heading towards Hispaniola which would be able to drop them off on Tortuga, in exchange for a few coins. It was leaving that very evening, and with a good wind behind them the vessel made swift progress. Only a week after arriving in Barbados, Anamaria found herself looking up at the hill above Tortuga town where her little hut stood. 

The boat hove to a short distance out from land, and the two passengers were ferried ashore. Sparrow hefted his bag on to his shoulder, and breathed in deeply. 

"Ah, Tortuga!" he said, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Celebrat'ry drink?" 

After a short pause, Anamaria agreed with a nod. 

They chose the 'Faithful Bride', which even in mid-afternoon was busy with pirates, sailors and other Tortugan society. Anamaria was surprised to find they made it to the bar, and had ordered ale and fish stew for two, before anyone took notice of their arrival. 

"Surely that's Anamaria, under that hat?" a voice said from beside her. She turned, and found a man smiling at her. 

"John Briggs," she returned, nodding at the man who had ferried her to Port Royal, months ago now, when the news of Jack Sparrow's capture had first come to Tortuga. 

"Aye, Briggs 'tis," Briggs agreed. "Well, folk never thought as we'd see you again. Reckoned you'd been hanged alongside poor old Cap'n Sparrow, we did." 

Sparrow turned, and favoured Briggs with his best gilded grin. "Reckoned wrong, didn't you, Mr Briggs?" 

Briggs peered at Sparrow, obviously puzzled as to his identity. Shaking his head, Sparrow looked at Anamaria. "Soon as me hair gets long enough, I'm putting those beads back in." 

"Cap'n Sparrow?" said Briggs. "_Jack_ Sparrow?" 

"Are there two of me?" Sparrow returned. 

"But you're … aren't you dead?" Briggs said, miming being hanged. "They were taking you to Newgate. How'd you …" He tailed off, and shook his head in disbelief. "Well, I never did." 

Sparrow clapped him on the shoulder. "They didn't hang me," he said. 

Briggs suddenly burst into laughter. 

"If this ain't a turn-up for the books!" he said, and clambering up on a table called for silence. "Look who's back, ladies and gents," he said. "Admiral Norrington reckoned he'd finished him off, but the man's got more lives'n a cat. It's Jack Sparrow!" 

And he hauled Sparrow up on the table beside him, to cheers and applause from the assembled company, and calls for the full tale of capture and escape. 

Left alone and unnoticed, Anamaria drained her ale, left her stew, and headed out of the tavern. As the sun painted the horizon the red of blood, she climbed up behind the town, and came at last to her home. She noted with pleasure that someone - probably her nephew Zac - had been to keep the vegetation from growing too wild, and inside the hut was neat and tidy. With a sigh, Anamaria deposited her bag on the floor and sat down on the low bed to take off her boots. 

She had changed from her worn sailor clothes into a simple top and bright skirt, and was thoughtfully combing out hair stiff with salt spray when someone knocked at the door. Leaving the comb on the bed, she went to open it. 

Jack Sparrow met her gaze with serious dark eyes. 

"They'll be drinkin' till dawn, and beyond," he said. 

"So why are you not there with them?" Anamaria asked. 

He moved past her into the hut, and waited until she had closed the door and was leaning against it. "Because I never properly thanked you," he said. "You could have sat here, mourned me, mourned the _Pearl_ …" 

"What makes you think I'd have mourned you?" she said, avoiding his look and going to fetch her comb again. 

"I know you," Sparrow returned. "And you know me. I reckon you're one of the few who actually does. I'm glad of it." He took off his hat, and threw it neatly on to a peg hammered into the wall. "So, I came to thank you for comin' to rescue me," he continued. "Life won't be the same without the old _Pearl_, but I reckon it's still worth living. I hadn't realised that until you turned up in Newgate." 

Anamaria, much to her discomfort, found herself blushing a little under Sparrow's scrutiny. She took a hank of hair in one hand and pulled the comb through it. "I am glad," she said, simply. 

Sparrow laughed, took three strides forward, and kissed her. It was a hard, serious kiss. After the first second of shock, Anamaria gave in and let him do it. 

He pulled away, hands resting on her shoulders, and smiled. 

"Should have done that years ago," he said. 

Anamaria returned the smile. "Maybe you should," she agreed, and allowed him to lean forward to kiss her again. Getting Jack Sparrow out of Newgate Gaol was one thing. But, it seemed, escaping from _him_ was not going to be an option. 

**The End**


End file.
